What is poetry?

[Agent327]

About the problems of translation: the following poem by the classical Tang poet Du Fu (712–770) can result in quite different translations. First the original in modern Chinese characters, followed by a phonetic transcription.


[FONT=&quot]月夜[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]今夜鄜州月[/FONT]
闺中只独看
[FONT=&quot]遥怜小儿女[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]未解[/FONT]忆长安
[FONT=&quot]香[/FONT]雾云鬟湿
[FONT=&quot]清[/FONT]辉玉臂寒
[FONT=&quot]何[/FONT]时倚虚幌
[FONT=&quot]双照泪痕干[/FONT]

yuè yè

jīn yè fū zhōu yuè
guī zhōng zhǐ dú kān
yáo lián xiǎo ér nǚ
wèi jiě yì cháng ān
xiāng wù yún huán shī
qīng huī yù bì hán
hé shí yǐ xū huǎng
shuāng zhào lèi hén gān


Note that, for the Western eye, kān, ān and gān are simple rhyming sounds, making the 2nd, 4th, 6th (hán being a crippled rhyme) and 8th line rhyming verse. Now, bearing in mind that words using the Latin alphabet also have different meanings, depending on the context they're used in, we can get the following translations.


[FONT=&quot]杜[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]甫[/FONT] Du Fu

[FONT=&quot]月夜[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]今夜鄜州月，[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]閨中只獨看。[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]遙憐小兒女，[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]未解憶長安。[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]香霧雲鬟濕，[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]清輝玉臂寒。[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]何時倚虛幌，[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]雙照淚痕乾。[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]原文[/FONT]

On a Moonlight Night

Far off in Fuzhou she is watching the moonlight,
Watching it alone from the window of her chamber-
For our boy and girl, poor little babes,
Are too young to know where the Capital is.
Her cloudy hair is sweet with mist,
Her jade-white shoulder is cold in the moon.
...When shall we lie again, with no more tears,
Watching this bright light on our screen?


(Translation by Bynner.)


Now a literal translation, followed by a versed one.


This night Fuzhou moon
Woman's chamber in only alone watch
Far pity little boy girl
Not understand remember Chang'an
Fragrant mist cloud dressed hair wet
Clear brightness jade arm cold
What time lean on empty curtain
Pair shine tears trace dry

The moon shines in Fuzhou tonight,
In her chamber, she watches alone.
I pity my distant boy and girl-
They don't know why she thinks of Chang'an.
Her cloud-like hair is sweet with mist,
Her jade arms cold in the clear moonlight.
When shall we lean in the empty window,
Together in brightness, and tears dried up?


(Translations from: Hawkes, D. (1967) A Little Primer of Tu Fu. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Watson, B. (2002) The Selected Poems of Du Fu. New York, Columbia University Press.)


Two more: one versed and finally a prose translation.


Tonight my wife must watch alone
the full moon over Fu-zhou;
I think sadly of my sons and daughters far away,
too young to understand this separation
or remember our life in Chang'an.
In fragrant mist, her flowing hair is damp;
in clear moonlight, her jade-white arms are cold.
When will we lean at the open casement totgether
while the moonlight dries our shining tears?

(Translation by David Lunde.)


Moonlit Night

Tonight in Fu-chou my wife will be watching this moon alone. I think with
tenderness of my far-away little ones, too young to understand about their
father in Ch'ang-an. My wife's soft hair must be wet from the scented night-
mist, and her white arms chilled by the cold moonlight. When shall we lean on
the open casement together and gaze at the moon until the tears on our cheeks
are dry?

(Another translation by Hawkes.)

In short, translators use poetic liberty while rendering their own versions of the original. Ofcourse, this was an exceptional example, as Chinese characters consist just of nouns, adjectives and verbs.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Translate this:

Fellin kinda bold
Climbin trees
In the Breeze
Keep drinking I'm told
It's Effing cold
i'm about to freeze
so get on your knees

 

[Agent327]

Thansk for sharing. I'm leaving Garcia Lorca as is for now to show that poetry isn't exclusively about emotions. Here's a small sample of Emily Dickinson:


As if the sea should part
and show a further sea -
and that - a further - and the three
but a presumption be -
of periods of seas -
unvisited of shores -
themselves the verge of seas to be -
eternity - is those -


(From Fascicle 35 - 6.)

It's curious as I remembered this one to be about infinity, but seeing as time is another dimension of space (in the space-time continuum), actually it is.

 

[Agent327]

Here now two samples of Federico Garcia Lorca, a lyrical, if not to say romantic, poet, as is especially clear from the sonnet dedicated to his friend and fellow Andalucian:


[A Manuel de Falla]

Lira cordial de plata refulgente
de duro acento y nervio desatado,
voces y frondas de una España ardiente
con tus manos de amor has dibujado.
En nuestra propia sangre está la fuente,
que tu razón y sueños ha brotado.
Algebra limpia de serena frente.
Disciplina y pasión de lo soñado.
Ocho provincias de la Andalucía,
olivo al aire y a la mar los remos,
cantan, Manuel de Falla, tu alegría.
Con el laurel y flores que ponemos,
amigos de tu casa en este día,
pura amistad sencilla te ofrecemos.


To Manuel de Falla

Cordial lyre of shining silver
of bright song and free force,
voices and leaf of a fiery Spain
which you sketched with loving hands.

Our own blood was the well
which your reason and dreams have sprung.
Algebra cleaned with a calm face.
Discipline and passion of the dream.

Eight provinces of Andalucia,
olive tree to the air and oars to the sea
sing, Manuel de Falla, of your joy.

With the laurels and flowers we bear,
your companions on this day,
we offer you friendship pure and true.


Like De Falla, Garcia Lorca was inspired both by nature and Spanish, particularly Andalucian, folklore. It appears to be a poem writ for the occasion of a visit to the composer. With fellow poets like Jorge Guillen (later fleeing the horrors of the Civil War) he became part of the "Generation of '27". In Madrid Garcia Lorca befriended the likes of Buñuel, Dali and other artists. Another (partial) poem, possibly a fragment of Romancero gitano:


Si muera,
dejad el balcón abierto.

El niño come naranjas.
(Desde mi balcón lo veo.)

El segador siega el trigo.
(Desde mi balcón lo siento.)

Si muero,
dejad el balcón abierto!


When I die,
leave open the balcony.

The boy is eating oranges.
(I see it from my balcony.)

The mower mows the corn.
(I hear it from my balcony.)

When I die,
leave open the balcony!

 

[Camikaze]

I recently got a new favourite poem.

The Apparition- John Donne

When by thy scorne, O murdresse, I am dead,
And that thou thinkst thee free
From all solicitation from mee,
Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,
And thee, fain'd vestall, in worse armes shall see;
Then thy sicke taper will begin to winke,
And he, whose thou art then, being tyr'd before,
Will, if thou stirre, or pinch to wake him, thinke
Thou call'st for more,
And in false sleepe will from thee shrinke
And then poore Aspen wretch, neglected thou
Bath'd in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lye
A veryer ghost than I;
What I will say, I will not tell thee now,
Lest that preserve thee'; and since my love is spent,
I'had rather thou shouldst painfully repent,
Than by my threatnings rest still innocent.


Personally, I think it's hilarious.

 

[flyingchicken]

Poetry is when the author has complete control of when to end the lines, says some article I read for English class.

 

[Agent327]

That holds true for all prose as well though.

As for Donne's Apparition, I find it to be disappointingly shallow in content; it would have gained far more in deepness if it addressed not a murdresse, but murderers instead. (His use of rhyme is ofcourse above all criticism.)

 

[Camikaze]

That holds true for all prose as well though.

As for Donne's Apparition, I find it to be disappointingly shallow in content; it would have gained far more in deepness if it addressed not a murdresse, but murderers instead. (His use of rhyme is ofcourse above all criticism.)

But the whole poem is addressing the the female, not the male who has taken the persona's place. Although I am not one to speak for what it is worth as seen critically, I particularly like it. Maybe it's the humour. Maybe it's the realistic parodying of Petrarchan Love Poetry. Maybe it's the irony and hypocrisy. I just think it is funny.

 

[Agent327]

Fair enough. I just don't like his treatment of jealousy, although entirely accurate in its depiction, as a subject; that's a personal assessment, though. Actually, the poem makes me feel hideous ad nauseam. So, as a metophor of jealousy it's an excellent poem. (Perhaps I'll quote a religious poem of Donne later then, if I can find a good one. If someone knows a good one, feel free to post it.)

EDIT: I just realized I've invented a new word (although the reality of it is more prosaic): I meant to say Donne's poem would gain in depth.

 

[Agent327]

I've noticed another glitch in my translation of that Garcia Lorca fragment, which I've corrected. I'll leave him be with a final short poem, simply called


Danza

En el huerto de petenera

En la noche del huerto
seis gitanas, vestidas de blanco,
bailan.

En la noche del huerto,
coronadas
con rosas de papel
y biznagas.

En la noche del huerto,
sus dientes de nácar
escriben la sombra
quemada.


Dance

In the orchard of the petenera

In the night of the orchard
six gypsies,
dressed in white,
are dancing.

In the night of the orchard,
crowned with paper roses
and fennel.

In the night of the orchard,
their pearly teeth
are flashing
through the scorched shadows.


The petenera is a dance, somehat similar to the habanera. Gitano, like the French gitane, is the term for gypsy. On a sidenote: the cante flamenco - meaning Flemish (from Flanders, Belgium) song, but used to describe Andalucian songs. In its eldest form these were called cante jondo (from cante jomtob, or holiday song). To avoid the Hebrew sounding jondo/jomtob it was nicknamed flamenco as a reference to those Jews who had fled to he north to escape the Spanish Inquisition. I end with a note on the "Generation of '27":

The Generation of '27 took its name from the year in which the tricentary of Góngora's death, ignored by official academic circles, was celebrated with recitals, avant-garde happenings, and an ambitious plan to publish a new critical edition of his work, as well as books and articles on aspects of his work that had not been fully researched.

The Generation of '27 was the first to attempt to self-consciously revise baroque literature. Dámaso Alonso wrote that Góngora's complex language conveyed meaning in that it created a world of pure beauty. Alonso explored his work exhaustively, and called Góngora a "mystic of words." Alonso dispelled the notion that Góngora had two separate styles –"simple" and "difficult" poems- that were also divided chronologically between his early and later years. He argued that Góngora's more complex poems built on stylistic devices that had been created in Góngora's early career as a poet. He also argued that the apparent simplicity of some of Góngora's early poems is often deceptive.

Rafael Alberti added his own Soledad tercera (Paráfrasis incompleta). In 1961, Alberti declared: "I am a visual poet, like all of the poets from Andalusia, from Góngora to García Lorca."[25]

Lorca presented a lecture called "La imagen poética en don Luís de Góngora" at the Ateneo in Seville in 1927.[26] In this lecture, Lorca paid Jean Epstein the compliment of comparing the film director with Góngora as an authority on images. (Quoted from Wikipedia.)

 

[Agent327]

Another member of the Generation of '27 was Nicolas Guillén (1893-1984), of whom I found the following translation:



The horse

Shaggy and heavily natural, they stand
Immobile under their thick and cumbrous manes,
Pent in a barbed enclosure which contains,
By way of compensation, grazing land.

Nothing disturbs them now. In slow increase
They fatten like the grass. Doomed to be idle,
To haul no cart or wagon, wear no bridle,
They grow into a vegetable peace.

Soul is the issue of so strict a fate.
They harbor visions in their waking eyes,
And with their quiet ears participate
In heaven’s pure serenity, which lies
So near all things—yet from the breasts concealed.
Serene now, superhuman, they crop their field.

 

[Agent327]

I've quoted a few bad boys of poetry...Poetry's proverbial bad boy - and the epitomy of Romanticism - was ofcourse Lord Byron.

George Gordon Byron, later Noel, 6th Baron Byron FRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was a British poet and a leading figure in Romanticism. Amongst Byron's best-known works are the brief poems She Walks in Beauty, When We Two Parted, and So, we'll go no more a roving, in addition to the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. He is regarded as one of the greatest European poets and remains widely read and influential, both in the English-speaking world and beyond.
Byron's fame rests not only on his writings but also on his life, which featured extravagant living, numerous love affairs, debts, separation, and marital exploits. He was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know".[1] Byron served as a regional leader of Italy's revolutionary organization, the Carbonari, in its struggle against Austria. He later traveled to fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero.[2] He died from a fever contracted while in Messolonghi in Greece. (Quoted from Wikipedia.)




Byron's fame results mostly from the epics Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan, both of whose protagonists seem to have some striking similarities to Byron himself. Childe Harold was written following two voyages across Europe, in 1809-'10 and 1816-'17. (Childe being an archaic term for a noble 'child', which hadn't received its title yet.) My favourite short poem of his is:



So We'll Go no More a Roving


So we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.




(I do have an inclination to change that last line to By the light of the silvery moon or some such equivalent, though; it seems to be short a syllable, making it drop out of metre.)

 

[warpus]

poetry is not
a beautiful thing for some.
they don't understand.

 

[Agent327]

Cool haiku!

 

[warpus]

thank you very much
it took me fourteen hours
god i need some sleep

 

[warpus]

i am so tired
waking up in 1 hour
goddamit.. ugh.. zzz

 

[Agent327]

thank you very much
it took me fourteen hours
god i need some sleep

14 hrs? It usually takes me about 5 mins to make a haiku (10-15 if my first draft isn't perfect).

I suggest taking a nap occasionally. (40 winks, as they say.) It's quite healthy.

BTW, like your avatar.

 

[Eukaryote]

Poetry is a beautiful series of words with a meaning that humans can relate to.

 

[Fifty]

Voyages II, by Hart Crane

--And yet this great wink of eternity,
O rimless floods, unfettered leewardings,
Samite sheeted and processioned where
Her undinal vast belly moonward bends,
Laughing the wrapt inflections of our love;

Take this Sea, whose diapason knells
On scrolls of silver snowy sentences,
The sceptered terror of whose sessions rends
As her demeanors motion well or ill,
All but the pieties of lovers' hands.

And onward, as bells off San Salvador
Salute the crocus lustres of the stars,
In these poinsettia meadows of her tides,--
Adagios of islands, O my Prodigal,
Complete the dark confessions her veins spell.

Mark how her turning shoulders wind the hours,
And hasten while her penniless rich palms
Pass superscription of bent foam and wave,--
Hasten, while they are true,--sleep, death, desire,
Close round one instant in one floating flower.

Bind us in time, O Seasons clear, and awe.
O minstrel galleons of Carib fire,
Bequeath us to no earthly shore until
Is answered in the vortex of our grave
The seal's wide spindrift gaze toward paradise.

 

[LightFang]

William Carlos Williams - The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.